I will share my research in anthropology and human factors during my presentation, and will highlight the similarities and differences between analog astronauts missions and initiation rituals in traditional societies. By doing so I will pinpoint how those similarities can provide us potential critical information and a new understanding of the third quarter phenomenon, a psychological phenomenon supposed to happen in long duration missions in Isolated Confined and Extreme environments and how this study could help to build counter-measure for potential future Mars missions.

Benjamin Pothier Ph.D is an independent consultant, interdisciplinary researcher, film director, executive producer and professional explorer born in France in 1973.

He currently works as a consultant and expert on analogs for the Spaceflight Institute, a company providing the world's first Commercial Astronaut Certification Program.

Specialized in Life experiences in isolated, confined and extreme environments and their documentation and studies, he participated to expeditions from the driest desert on Earth to the Northernmost human settlement. He is a former expert for the human spaceflight committee of the international astronautical federation, a post-doctoral Alumni research fellow at the University of Plymouth (UK) and was elected in 2018 as an International fellow of the Explorers Club (NYC).

Dr Pothier has participated to half a dozen space missions simulations in extreme environments on Earth in collaboration with space agencies and private companies. He was the First French selected for the "Arctic Circle Residency" in the Arctic Ocean and Svalbard in 2013, and the Ars Bio Arctica residency at Kilpisjarvi’s research station in Finland in 2014, and was a visiting scholar at the Center for Saami and Indigenous studies at Tromsø University in Norway.

A former recipient of the LunAres 2021 research Grant, the School of Arts, Design and Architecture PGR Fund Grant 2017 (University of Plymouth) and the French-Norwegian Center in Human and Social Sciences 2014 Grant, he has lived twice on active volcanoes (Ojos del Salado, Chile and Grimsvotn, Iceland) and experienced twice extreme high altitude (18044,62 ft) in Nepal and 19685,04 ft in Chile.

Active in the field of Space Art, he became in 2022 the first French sculptor to send an artwork to the International Space Station, sending a sculpture containing a drop of Yves Klein IKB Blue color for the Moon gallery project.

His work has been featured on PBS, Amazon prime, ARTE TV, La Stampa, The Telegraph, Le Figaro, Libération, etc.

More on Liminality…